Ethos, The Weblog
Friday, June 17, 2005
Copyright-Worried Photo Labs Spurn Jobs
Victor forwarded me this news feature on Yahoo News. This is definitely an interesting problem, something perhaps that places like Kinkos have already had to deal with.
This problem wants me to think of ways to digitally copyright my work so models just can't go print off my work for free.
Copyright-Worried Photo Labs Spurn Jobs - Yahoo! News
Sunday, June 12, 2005
A glance at the June 10 issue of Science: How "competent" faces win elections
(From the Chronicle of Higher Ed)
Do physically attractive political candidates have an edge? The answer appears to be yes, to judge from a paper by four researchers at Princeton University.
In their study, subjects were shown images of Congressional candidates for only one second and were then asked which were more "competent," based solely on their appearance. The subjects picked the actual election winners about 70 percent of the time, report Alexander Todorov, an assistant professor of psychology, and three graduate students in his department.
The inferences also were directly proportional to the candidates' margins of victory in races, the authors say. Their findings, they conclude, suggest that rapid, unreflective impressions of candidates contribute to voting choices -- a view that contradicts the common belief that votes are based primarily on rational deliberations.
In a related article, Leslie A. Zebrowitz, a professor of psychology at Brandeis University, and Joann M. Montepare, an associate professor of psychology at Emerson College, say that voters appear to judge faces as not competent based on whether, for example, candidates looked more "babyfaced" than did their opponents. That trait, characterized by such features as round faces and large eyes, is often interpreted by voters as a sign of being submissive, naïve, and weak.
Mr. Todorov and his colleagues say that their findings suggest that "consequential decisions can be more shallow than we would like to believe," and note that researchers have found "no good evidence that trait inferences from facial appearance are accurate."
The two articles, "Inferences of Competence From Faces Predict Election Outcomes" and "Appearance Does Matter," are available to subscribers and for purchase at http://www.sciencemag.org/content/current/
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
NY Times Feature on Digital Photography
Although these articles are not quite what you would find on professioanl technique sites, they are a great read. I did love the one though featuring photographer David Burnett. Perhaps I'll pull out my toy camera next time I shoot...
Technology News - Circuits - The New York Times
